Japan executes two death-row gangster inmates

CONDEMNED:：Amnesty International protested the executions, which it said showed the government’s intention to pave the way for mass executions

AFP, TOKYO

Sat, Apr 27, 2013 - Page 6

Japan said yesterday it hanged two death-row inmates, in the first executions since a trio of convicted killers were put to death two months ago and drawing immediate protest from human rights groups.

Japanese Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki told reporters that Katsuji Hamasaki, 64, and Yoshihide Miyagi, 56, two members of Japan’s notorious yakuza organized crime syndicates, were executed for the shooting of two rival gangsters in Chiba, southeast of Tokyo, in 2005.

The executions bring to five the number of death-row inmates hanged since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative government swept to power in landslide elections in December last year.

Japan now has 134 inmates on its death row.

Amnesty International Japan, the Japanese branch of the global rights group, protested yesterday.

“We strongly condemn the five executions conducted since the launch of the new government, which goes against calls by the international community and indicates the government’s intention to pave the way for mass executions,” it said in a statement.

Tokyo did not execute any condemned inmates in 2011, the first full year in nearly two decades without an execution amid muted debate on the rights and wrongs of a policy that enjoys wide public support.

However, in March last year, Tokyo resumed its use of capital punishment with an unapologetic government minister signing death warrants for three multiple murderers.

Apart from the US, Japan is the only major industrialized democracy to carry out capital punishment, a practice that has led to repeated protests from European governments and human rights groups.

International advocacy groups say the system is cruel because death row inmates can wait for their executions for many years in solitary confinement and are only told of their impending death a few hours ahead of time.